Choosing the right consultant is more important than you think

Unsplash/Getty Images

Every country, city, company and organisation is in a fight for ideas. As the region booms and the talent competition sharpens, management consultants often become the go-to choice.

In my nearly 15 years of experience with regional governments and 10 years as a strategy consultant before that, I have commissioned and delivered hundreds of millions of dirhams of consulting work. Being on both sides of the fence, I can attest to the value these services can bring.

However I have spent countless late nights redoing the work of top-tier companies, making it fit for purpose before presenting to a minister, sheikh or chairperson. Many final deliverables never saw the light of day, having no impact on the world.

---

---

In contrast, every impactful project I have been involved with – whether creating new laws, national visions, major investments or launching new institutions – resulted from small teams of passionate specialists, dedicated insiders and trusted experts working closely with decision-makers.

Why is this the case?

Big consultancies have had their share of bad press. Books such as When McKinsey Comes to Town and The Big Con detail how over-reliance on traditional consulting models harms society and the companies that employ them. 

From Arthur Andersen’s creative accounting for Enron to McKinsey’s role in the US Opioid Epidemic and the 1MDB scandal, history is full of examples of consultancy gone wrong.

Large management consultancies are not inherently bad or filled with bad people; many of my best friends are consultants. They deliver exactly what the market demands: short-term staffing solutions, rented expertise, validation of existing perspectives and arbitrage, all dressed up as innovation and best-in-class strategies.

• Want to sound like a leader? You need to know three things
• Alstom breaks mould as Gulf lags on hiring women as CEOs

One might argue that consultants should refuse ethically dubious or mediocre work. However, the reality of running a service business with thousands of employees often leads to accepting everything except the most obviously illegal or egregious objections. 

Running large practices also depends on a continuous stream of work, resulting in experienced staff (partners) spending most of their time selling while less experienced juniors deliver the work.

These juniors rely on working long hours, finding what they see as best practice, and using desktop research and pre-defined templates. The result is work that is safe, generic and backward-looking rather than novel, future-focused and fit for purpose.

What should a CEO or national leader do?

Large consultancies offer brand-name credibility which helps new initiatives get approved. They provide useful benchmarks and best practices against global standards.

Sometimes they come up with original ideas but often all you will get is recycled content. Generic advice and shiny presentations created by inexperienced juniors and delivered by fly-in partners. This can be a useful sanity check if you already know the answer you are looking for and the best way to achieve it.

On the other hand, for challenges which require delicate, bespoke or highly curated solutions, seek a master craftsperson.

Masters are hard to find, in high demand, booked years in advance, expensive and less known to procurement. They usually run their businesses or do interesting, impactful things. They do not get excited by working unless it aligns with their interests and values, making them harder to hire. 

A mentor once told me: “Smart people need organisations a lot less than organisations need smart people.”

Both approaches have their uses. Which approach is right for you depends on your situation.

Complex, politically sensitive, high-trust issues that are high-stake propositions and require a deep understanding of you and your business happen more often than we think.

Experience has taught me that hiring an over-qualified master for generic work (if you can convince that person) has a lower failure rate than the other way around. The costs and consequences of hiring volume producers for delicate work are much higher.

As we look to the future, clients must demand more artisanal results from their consultants, regardless of how large or generalised the company may be. Many large consulting firms are full of bright people with interesting ideas who rarely get the chance to express themselves. 

Whether hiring a Big4 or an artisanal wizard’s studio, authenticity, dedication and a personalised understanding should be the minimum you demand.

Dr Noah Raford is managing partner for Emerging Markets Intelligence & Research (EMIR) and former chief futurist for the Dubai government